In commercial meat packing operations, animals, such as hogs, are slaughtered, bled, skinned, eviscerated, and the carcass is then cut into halves before it is chilled. Typically, the carcasses are suspended from an overhead conveyor and the worker makes a vertical cut through the carcass along the backbone with a power driven saw. The vertical cut is made by the worker as the hog carcass is moved by the overhead conveyor. It will be apparent that this type of carcass splitting procedure is not only dangerous, but it is also a labor-intensive operation.